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On Monday, the first day of our 4200-kilometre drive home, we left Sydney just after 11.00 am and drove through the Hunter Valley passed vineyards, coalmining, horse breeding and sheep and cattle rearing country to Tamworth, stopping only at Wilberforce for fuel and Bulga to eat lunch.

We got to Tamworth around 6.00 pm.The information centre was closed but we managed to find the tourist park we’d stayed at before.

Tamworth – St George

We did a bit of shopping before leaving Tamworth next day, then stopped for fuel at Barraba and had a pitstop at Warialda Apex Park. After getting an hour back when we crossed the Queensland border, we stopped for lunch in Goondiwindi and visited the information centre and the statue of Gunsyng.

We got to St George just after 4.00 pm, checked into our cabin and went for a walk along the Balonne River.

St George – Barcaldine

On Wednesday we left St George for Barcaldine. On the way we saw an echidna, a very special privilege, scurrying into the undergrowth by the side of the road; and, a couple of herds of cattle being driven along the ‘Long Paddock’; again, not something you get to see every day..

We stopped for lunch at Meat Ant Park in Augathella, then fuelled up and drove on to Barcaldine through Tambo and Blackall.

Barcaldine – Mt Isa

Before leaving Barcaldine on Thursday morning, we visited the Shearers Memorial and the remains of the Tree of Knowledge.

Longreach was our first top for fuel then Winton where we watched the reconstruction of the Waltzing Matilda Centre while we ate lunch. The original was destroyed by fire in 2015.

We had a pitstop at McKinley and fuelled up again at Cloncurry before arriving at Mt Isa around 6.00 pm..

Next day we intended doing a tour of the Hard Times Mine but it was closed for maintenance so instead we just had a walk around town, drove to the lookout, went back to the cabin for lunch, then drove out to Moondarra Dam.

Mt Isa – Renner Springs
We left Mt Isa at 9.15 am and drove to Camooweal where we stopped for fuel before crossing the border back into the Northern Territory and getting back another half an hour, so it was now 10.55 am not 11.25 am as it was in Queensland.

We stopped at the Barclay Homestead around 1.oo pm and ate lunch, then at the Threeways for fuel at 3.10 pm before getting to Renner Springs at 4.15 pm, where we stopped for the night.

The walking tracks were shortened by the recent rain but we saw plenty of birdlife around the motel and dam.

Between the resident cockerel and the ‘ventilated’ curtains, we didn’t need a wake-up call the next morning.

So we started the last leg of our journey and left Renner Springs at 8.40 Sunday morning. We stopped for fuel at Elliot and Mataranka and had a pitstop at the explorer Alexander Forrest memorial cairn. We were going to eat lunch at Bitter Springs but it was closed due to a crocodile sighting so we continued on to a roadside stop just before King River.

After lunch it was less than an hour’s drive to Katherine where we fuelled up, then on to Adelaide River for our last pitstop before the final drive home, arriving in Darwin at 5.30 pm.

It rained for a week after we got home!

Well that’s it, the end of another journey. Thanks for joining us. Hope you enjoyed it. Bye for now!

Bairnsdale to Eden

After the very informative and enjoyable tour of St Mary’s Church and visiting the information centre nextdoor, we started our journey to Eden – as in the town, not the ‘Garden of …’.

This was one of the most enjoyable day’s drive. The misty mountain roads made driving enchanting without being too dangerous and the walk in the Drummer Rainforest after lunch was just magical.

I love Eden. We stayed there once before. Again, the only accommodation the information centre could find us was a motel. No kitchen facilities meant we had to eat out. First we checked out the views from a couple of lookouts before having dinner at a lovely Chinese restaurant, the Golden Ocean, where the food and service were excellent. The staff went out of their way to make us feel welcome and nothing was too much to ask. It even said on the menu that if there was something you wanted that wasn’t on there, they’d do their best to make it for you.

Eden to Batemans Bay

Before we left Eden. We drove down to the very popular Aslinn Beach, the beachfront of the local tourist park.

From Eden we went to Merimbula and the Blue Pool, though it wasn’t very blue due to an algae outbreak. From there we drove to the beautiful Bermagui where we stopped for lunch.

At Batemans Bay we checked into the tourist park, shopped for groceries, then went for a drive to the beautiful beaches nearby, before going for a walk along the seafront.

On our second day at Batemans Bay we finally had the big breakfast we’d been carrying with us since Broken Hill! We walked that off at Eurobodella Botanic Gardens on our way to Mogo, a picturesque little town we’d been to quite a few times, the main attraction for us being the cheese tasting, although many go for the fudge, ice cream and pies. Overall it’s a very tasty place.

Community Building Mogo

We went back to the cabin for lunch, then drove across the bridge to Nelligen, another historic little township.

Batemans Bay to Sydney

We started the last day of our Adelaide to Sydney roadtrip around 9.00 am, stopped for lunch and a visit to the craft shop at Berry, then at Bald Hill Lookout, before arriving at our destination around 4.15 pm.

Broken Hill to Mildura

Before leaving Broken Hill we did a quick tour of the Pro Hart Gallery which was fascinating and we wished we had more time to spend there but we had to press on. We were going to lose half an hour when we crossed into Victoria later that day.

We stopped by the river in Pooncarie for lunch.

Then it was on to Mildura where we appreciated the airconditioning of the Information Centre while they found us accommodation – it was 44ºC outside. The only cabin was a fair bit out of town, expensive and we had to make the bed ourselves. Not impressed!

It was too hot for us to even go for our walk so we just drove back into town, had a drive down by the river, then shopped for dinner before heading back to the airconditioning.

Mildura to Echuca

We drove to Swan Hill on the Murray River and ate lunch there before heading to Echuca where the only available accommodation was even more expensive but it was a beautiful fully equipped apartment with a spa and laundry.

We had a look at the waterfront area where we were going to go on a river cruise the next morning and did the usual drive around town before shopping for dinner then heading home.

The lamb chops with baked potatoes and green beans went down a treat.

After dinner I decided to take advantage of having a laundry and did a load of washing, but when I went to get the clothes out of the dryer before going to bed I realised that the dryer had just been turning but not drying! I rang the host first thing the next morning and she offered me the use of the dryer nextdoor as there was nobody staying there that day. Needless to say, I took her up on that offer but it put our departure back by about an hour. We would have missed the river cruise but, as it turned out, the cruise wasn’t running that day and in any case it was raining so we just got back on the road.

Echuca to Bairnsdale

Our first stop was Glenrowan, the site of Ned Kelly’s last stand.

Myrtleford was our lunch stop when there was a break in the drizzling rain.

Then we headed to Bairnsdale via the Great Alpine Way, a long twisting climb through the mountains and some astounding scenery.

When we checked in at the tourist park in Bairnsdale, I thought Brian had found religion because he asked if the local Catholic church was open. Then he reminded me that it was no ordinary church and we had visited it with our girls and my mother years earlier.

We visited St Mary’s the next morning. Its reason for fame is its frescoes painted by an Italian artist with a sense of humour, for example he painted some cherubs with their heads on back to front and modelled some of his subjects on locals.

Yorke Peninsula was our first destination. The landscape on the way was vast, beige and pretty barren, with only stubble left where the crops had already been harvested.

However Coobowie, where we spent our first night, is a bird haven especially popular with pelicans and quite pretty.

Next day, not far from Coobowie, we passed through Wattle Point Wind Farm, the largest one we’ve ever come across.

At Innes National Park we walked to the lighthouse at Stenhouse Bay and around Inneston Historic Township.

That night we stayed in Wallaroo at a lovely heritage-style motel, the Sonbern Lodge, opposite the old train station.

Next day we stopped to eat lunch by the river at Jamestown.

Later we got to Broken Hill, checked into a tourist park, then did enough shopping for three days before having a drive around town. It was too hot to do anything outside, with the temperature around 40 degrees and forecast to get even hotter. Back at the cabin, trying to deal with a black ant invasion, we got a text message informing us the power company was cutting off supply from 8.00 am to 4.00 pm the next day. Not good.

True to their word, the power went off at 8.08 am before we had time to cook the big breakfast we’d bought the ingredients for. Brian had to put them and the rest of the food that had to be kept refrigerated into the car fridge and take them all with us for the day.

First we went to Silverton, another historic town, and had a look around the remaining buildings, the John Dynon Gallery and the Mad Max Museum before having a refreshing beer at the Silverton Hotel.

The power was still out when we got back to Broken Hill so we went to see the Broken Hill Sculptures and the Miners Memorial lookout.

Inevitably the time came for us to go our separate ways. A day of bitter-sweet feelings. A mixture of sadness at parting whilst anticipating the next leg of our various adventures.

It’s on occasions like this that I am extremely grateful for the way my parents brought me up to love travel and that passion has been picked up by our children who are passing it on to our grandchildren. The fact that I managed to find a likeminded husband helped a bit too!
For our part, Coobarrie eased the pain of separation.

I taught myself a valuable lesson here: Just because you are forced to pay extra for a spa unit, doesn’t mean you have to use the spa bath. But I tried. Initially I was just annoyed at the amount of water it took to fill the tub above the spouts, but then I found it impossible to adjust the taps without standing up and then discovered there was nothing to hold onto in the tub. Even if I wasn’t technically disabled, I would not have been comfortable in this spa unit. As a result, I exited the supposedly relaxing spa bath in an agitated state!

It was great spending time with family and friends, especially observing the interactions between our grandchildren and between them and various adults. We went strawberry picking, visited playgrounds, parks, botanic gardens and had a trip to the Big Rocking Horse and its animal park. Unfortunately I lost some photos of those events but I think you’ll get the gist from the following pics.

A lovely trip to the park with David, Brian, Alannah and Joshua with their scooters which ended up substituting for cricket wickets, except Allanah kept putting them the right way up and I ended up ‘standing in’ with my walking stick. Needless to say that didn’t last long!

Later we maintained the family tradition of attending the latest Star Wars movie, The LastJedi.

Not only was the stress of food shopping relieved by staff handing out chocolates and food samples, but the Foodland Flashmob certainly improved everyone’s mood with their sudden rendition of popular opera classics.

Tara’s 30th Birthday

First we collected most of the guests on a bus with David as our driver and Joshua as his awesome offsider.

Mini golf was next on the agenda.

Our first wine tasting was at Penfolds

We had food-wine matching followed by lunch and birthday cake at the SA Company Kitchen.

From there we proceeded to Seppeltsfield for another wine tasting including a special tasting for Tara of 1987 vintage Para port bottled the year she was born.

I think it’s fair to say that a good time was had by all. I certainly had a great time.

A huge Thank You to Aisling for arranging it all and David for being an excellent driver getting us all safely there and back.

Christmas lights at Lobethal

We took advantage of having the bus overnight and visited Lobethal to see the town’s famous Christmas lights display.

‘Departed Laura 9.40 am’ is the last entry in my notebook and sadly the last time I’ll feel the freedom of the road for a while. From here on, the open road gets shorter as does the distance between small towns; the volume of traffic increases, as does the tension in the vehicle, until we are in the thick of outer city traffic. We detour/escape briefly to have a look at Tara’s investment property, but too soon re-enter the game of dodgem cars. We’re all hungry, we haven’t stopped for lunch yet but we’re in the wrong lane whenever we spot a potential lunch stop so keep going, negotiating a combination of Brian’s hard-copy map book with my feeble attempts at navigating with Google. But then somehow we get there. We’re outside the property we’ve rented. I have the codes to the locked box and the electronic gate in my notebook. We’re all busting for a pee. Brian parks across the street. I suck in my bladder, I get out, notebook in hand, I key in the locked box number, the box door falls open revealing the door key. I grab it. Now all I have to do is open the gate, open the door, find the loo and pee! But that is not to be. The electronic gate won’t open, so I have to go back to the vehicle, look up the contact details, then, legs crossed, phone the ‘owner’ to get the correct access code! One essential digit had been omitted. I enter it and we gain access find the toilets and take up residence. The rest, as they say, is history. But not one I want to relate here.

That’s the end of the roadtrip. Almost our entire Australian family is in one city at one time, we just have to get us all in one house at one time, hopefully Chrisatmas Day.

Thank you for joining me on this roadtrip. As time permits I’ll post brief updates and photos of the rest of our trip but this is a time for family, so from my family to you and yours may I wish you the happiest of Christmases and everything you wish for and deserve in the new year. And you do deserve it!